* * *
The afternoon was beautiful: the sun shone, the sea was calm, the breeze was little more than a whisper. Throughout the day, more and more teenagers arrived on the beach, squealing and shrieking as they hugged and kissed their friends. Lou could see that even in this idyllic setting the usual rules applied: there were cliques to which you either belonged or didn’t. Even without knowing them she could work out which groups people belonged to by their swimwear, sunglasses, hairstyles.
Melissa came back from a swim, water dripping off her goose-bumped skin. ‘God, the water’s cold.’ She shook the sand off her towel and wrapped it around herself. ‘Some guys out there are pissed already. They’re trying to snorkel, but they’re going to get themselves in trouble.’
‘Who are they?’ Astrid asked, looking up from her magazine.
Melissa shrugged. ‘No one we know. Hey, I’m going back to have a shower and get ready for tonight. We’re heading to the pub soon.’ She waved her hand towards Claire.
‘So unfair,’ Lou said. ‘Do you reckon we could sneak in?’
‘No chance,’ Astrid said. ‘Have you seen how many cops are around? And they’ve got extra bouncers on all weekend to check ID.’
Lou sighed and sat up. A breeze blew in off the water and she shivered. ‘It’s getting chilly now. Why can’t schoolies be during February or something? Should we get something to eat?’
Julietta rolled onto her side, moving into the shrinking patch of afternoon sun. ‘The boys are having a barbie at their place. I said we’d bring some sausages or something. Shall we go to the store and get some?’
‘Sounds good.’ Lou looked at Claire. ‘Before you guys go to the pub, can you go to the bottle shop for us?’
‘Yeah, if you hurry.’
Lou grinned. ‘Yes! Let’s go now. It’s going to be a great night!’ She sat up, brushed the sand off her elbows and gathered up her things.
* * *
And she was having a great night. Lou drank bottles of lime-flavoured vodka mixers with her friends, while they laughed and celebrated being out of school forever. Music blared from portable speakers, and teenagers from the neighbouring villas trickled into the party. Every so often someone would get a call from a friend in another part of the island to warn them that the police were patrolling, and they’d all rush inside and turn the music down so they didn’t get done for under-age drinking.
As she tossed back her head and laughed, Lou watched Theo talking to his friends and saw that he was watching her too. She smiled a little at him, knowing that this weekend, they’d get back together. It wasn’t really his fault that he’d had to move on from her: Lou had been under lock and key for so long, she couldn’t expect him to wait for her forever. But this weekend there was no one hovering around keeping an eye on her; for the first time in as long as she could remember, she was in control. This was what it felt like to be an adult.
* * *
Lou was having trouble keeping track of the conversation. She’d lost count of how many bottles she’d drunk. It was dark now, and the villa they were in – a different one to earlier – was crammed with people dancing. Her thongs stuck to the tacky floor as she elbowed her way through the crowd to the verandah to get some fresh air. Outside, about half a dozen people were leaning on the railing, or sitting on the floor, smoking. Someone was passing a joint around; the sweet smell of marijuana was thick in the night air.
Lou stumbled over someone’s leg then found a space in the corner of the verandah. She sat down and rested her head on her bent knees as the world around her spun. She swallowed the saliva pooling beneath her tongue, then clasped her hand over her mouth as she gagged. She struggled to her feet and ran back through the crowd then down the wooden steps at the front of the villa. Her guts began to heave; she took her hand off her mouth and braced herself against a tree as she retched. When it was over, she wiped away the tears running from her eyes, then checked the front of her dress for vomit, but all she could see was a damp patch from where she’d spilled her drink earlier.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. She was about ten metres away from the light spilling out of the villa, but it felt much further. The music and voices behind her sounded distant, drowned by the hissing and gentle crashing of the waves on the sand. The ocean breeze brought snatches of laughter from the boats lit up on their moorings in the bay. She walked away from the pool of vomit, towards the water, then collapsed on the sand. Her mouth tasted foul, of sour bile and sweet, sugary alcopops; she wished she was at home in her own bed. She stretched her arms out behind her and tipped back her head until she was looking up at the sky. The stars were brighter here, away from the lights of the city, but they were blurred and moving in small circles. Lou groaned as she started to feel dizzy again, then tipped her head forward. The wind blew; she blinked as sand as fine as dust scratched her eyes. She inhaled deeply, then gagged. The air, rather than being fresh, smelled rotten. She tried to breathe through her mouth but the taste of decay stuck to her tongue. Putting the top of her dress over her mouth and nose to act as a filter, she looked to either side of her, but it was too dark to see what might be the source of the smell. She remembered the dugites, long dark-brown snakes, that she’d seen curled up earlier on the beach, resting in the shade of the rock overhangs, and then the tiger sharks and great whites swimming around the island. Her heart racing, she stood up quickly and ran back towards the party.
She found Theo and tapped him on the shoulder. His eyes were glazed, threaded with thin red lines. He smiled, a lazy, cocky smile. ‘Hey,’ he slurred. ‘I wondered when you’d come and say hello. Been ignoring me?’
Lou raised her eyebrows. ‘Hardly. I think you’ve been avoiding me …’
He leaned towards her, the tang of Red Bull on his breath. She hoped she didn’t smell of vomit. ‘Stay there,’ she said, leaning forward and kissing him on the lips. ‘I need to get a drink, I’ll be right back.’ He winked at her.
Lou went to look for a bottle of vodka. At this time of night there was always one belonging to someone who was too pissed to remember to hide it. She headed to the small kitchen, then noticed that everyone was going the opposite way, out of the villa. She paused, looking around.
Theo grabbed her hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s a dead whale at Stark Bay. Apparently there’s heaps of sharks eating it. Let’s go!’
‘Where? I —’
‘Come on, it’s not far. Grab your bike.’
‘But —’ Lou didn’t know why she was protesting. Of course she’d go. Everyone was going, Theo was going. ‘Wait for me, don’t go without me.’
She ran back to her villa, only a few houses away, and grabbed her bike from outside. Astrid’s was gone already; the villa was empty. Smiling, Lou found the key under the rock near the front door, then grabbed the bottle of vodka that they’d hidden under a bed for tomorrow night, and shoved it in her bag. She pedalled back to the party where Theo was waiting for her.
* * *
Lou didn’t have lights on her bike, but the tourist bus didn’t go this late, and there were no other cars on the island, so she just concentrated on following the noises of the cyclists in front of her. Now that her eyes had readjusted to the dark, she relaxed. This was a beautiful way to see the island, even if the putrid smell was getting stronger as they cycled west. ‘Wait, Theo,’ she laughed as she tried to pedal up a steep hill. ‘Wait for me!’
He stopped and put one foot on the ground. The others kept going. Lou jumped off her bike, giggling, and pushed it up the hill towards him. As she neared him, he smiled again and took her hand, then led her to the edge of the road. She smiled as she stumbled. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t know, what are you doing?’ he mumbled. He pulled her further back from the road, then put his arms around her waist. ‘I missed you.’ He began to kiss her, and she kissed him back. Her lips were dry, and stung as his kisses became more insistent. Her mouth was parched; she needed a drink.
/> ‘Wait,’ she whispered, and took the bottle of vodka from her bag. She unscrewed it and took a swig, then coughed as it burned her throat and the back of her nose. She passed it to Theo and he drank some too, then kissed her again. The alcohol hit her bloodstream and warmed her body as Theo’s hands seemed to be all over her at once: down the back of her dress; under her skirt; tangled in her hair. Her head jerked back as his fingers stuck in the knots. She groaned. They dropped to the ground. She heard the whirr of wheels as someone cycled up the hill past them, but she wasn’t embarrassed; she felt brave, daring. It made it better, more exciting. Her fingers fumbled with the drawstring on Theo’s board shorts; at that moment, she knew what was going to happen. She ignored the anxiety in her stomach. As he slipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders, she scolded herself for being so prudish. She was an adult now. She had left school, she would soon leave home, and here was the ideal place to leave her childhood behind.
* * *
Afterwards, they lay on their backs on the sandy ground and looked at the stars. They talked, they laughed, and they drank the vodka. Lou couldn’t stop smiling. It was as if the past few months hadn’t happened. She and Theo were perfect together, and as they talked about their dreams and plans for the future, she never wanted the night to end. She saw a shooting star, then the sky spinning, and she laughed. Her skin felt hot and she couldn’t really understand what Theo was saying any more as his voice got louder and softer, louder and softer, but she knew that she felt wonderful. She picked up the vodka bottle again and frowned as she realised it was almost empty. But then she felt cold, and her arms and legs began to shiver, then shake, and her teeth chattered, and Theo was telling her to get up but he didn’t understand that her limbs were too heavy and she couldn’t move them, but she was so cold, and everything was going round and round, but then she felt the hot trickle of urine scalding her freezing legs, and she couldn’t understand what Theo was saying to her, and then someone was screaming and lifting her, and then it all went dark.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nadia dropped the girls and Harry at school. She smiled briefly at the other mums, but didn’t engage in conversation, instead hurrying back through the school grounds and out the gate to her car. She got inside and closed the door, then leaned back in her seat, trying to breathe slowly. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to go home; she couldn’t think there among all the clutter and mess.
A car horn beeped. Nadia jumped and looked up. A four-wheel drive had pulled up next to her, and the driver was leaning over, seatbelt straining, waving at Nadia through the open passenger window. Nadia lowered her own window.
‘Are you going?’ the woman shouted.
Nadia stared at her. ‘I’m —’
‘You’re in the drop-off area, can you move?’
Nadia nodded and mumbled an apology, then quickly put on her seatbelt and turned the key in the ignition. Her hands shook; her mouth was dry. She pulled out, and the other car reversed up the street, then swooped into her space.
Nadia drove a few metres to the junction with the highway, then began to cry. She wished she’d parked further up the street, away from the drop-off zone, and walked; then she’d never have had to encounter that awful woman. And why had she apologised? She’d done nothing wrong. She’d had enough of everyone telling her what to do, of giving every part of herself to other people.
The road in front of her was clear. She flicked the indicator right, in the direction of home, then changed her mind and flicked it left instead. She turned onto the highway, and drove past the old flourmill, its giant red dingo logo towering over her. She turned right over the Fremantle traffic bridge, then right again towards the town centre, went past the prison and kept going. She drove for half an hour, then turned around and drove back, this time alongside the water, heading towards the beaches of North Fremantle.
The wind rocked the car as she pulled into the beach car park. Nearby was an old kiosk with faded ice-cream adverts and a closed grey metal shutter on the front. The dark green shrubs on the dunes were buffeted by gusts of wind, and the ocean was churning, white waves breaking on the beach then tumbling back out. Past the breakers the water was teal, the sky an electric grey; on the horizon was the silhouette of a container ship.
Nadia pushed the car door open against the wind, pressed the fob button to lock the car, then ran along the path and up the stairs into the shelter of the new cafe above the surf club.
A waitress with a tattoo of a dove on her wrist led her to one end of a long wooden table. The glass doors to the balcony were closed and streaked with raindrops. Nadia sat on a green wooden chair, ordered a flat white and a slice of lemon and poppy-seed cake and stared out of the window.
She had felt so detached from the world over the past few months. The only person who made her feel alive now was Louise, but those moments of joy were tangled up with heartbreak whenever she said goodbye to her. The only people who understood were the women of the relinquishing mothers’ group. These women – Tracey, Jill, the others – they all had regrets; every single one of them said that if they could turn back the clock they would do anything to hold onto their children, no matter how hard it would be. Because life without their children was harder. It was because of them that after their last meeting Nadia had pored over the legislation to see if there was anything she could do. But, then, she had quickly realised that there was no way to challenge the parentage order: without an exceptional reason, there was no way to get Louise back.
But now things had changed.
When Rosemary had called yesterday and told her that Zoe had disappeared that morning with Louise, Nadia had screamed and sobbed in Eddie’s arms. He’d held her and told her not to worry, that they’d come back soon, but he didn’t understand. He never had. It wasn’t just the physical connection of pregnancy that he had missed out on; Eddie had avoided anything to do with the surrogacy. He’d done the things he had to – the legal and counselling sessions – but he hadn’t gone with her to the antenatal appointments, or the scans. He must have known how difficult it would be for her to see the baby on the screen while Zoe and Lachlan hugged and cried and wanted the ultrasound photos for their damn baby book, but he had taken the easy way out, detached himself from the pregnancy, and from Louise. He’d detached himself from Nadia, too. He had no right now to tell her that her feelings weren’t legitimate.
On the phone, Rosemary had told her to calm down, that Zoe had left a note saying not to worry and that she just needed some time to think. Afterwards, Nadia had called Zoe’s mobile again and again, but it was switched off. She did trust Zoe to keep Louise safe, physically, in the short term at least; she knew Zoe loved Louise as if she was her own. But she couldn’t trust Lachlan. Not after what he’d done. He was unstable, he could be dangerous. And Nadia was sure Zoe would go back to him: she’d seen how she defended him, even while her bruises were still forming. On the other hand, if Zoe didn’t go back to him, Louise would then be raised by a single mother, who would have to work shifts to earn a pittance, who had a chronic illness and could end up in hospital, sick or disabled, at any time. The thought that had kept Nadia wide awake all night was the fear that Zoe might never come back, and that Nadia might never see Louise again.
When they’d all gone through the counselling before starting the surrogacy, the four of them had discussed hypothetical situations: what would happen if the scan showed the baby had Down syndrome or was born with another disability? What would happen if Zoe and Lachlan split up? They’d all laughed; it had seemed so unlikely. Hypothetically, they’d said that Louise would remain in the shared custody of her parents, Lachlan and Zoe. But they hadn’t just split up; Lachlan was disturbed, violent. And in Nadia’s eyes, that meant all bets were off. She would not have her daughter – and Louise was her daughter – put at risk, physically or emotionally. Louise needed stability, a family who could provide for her best interests. The way things were, Louise’s best interests were n
ot being met with Zoe – either with or without Lachlan. What kind of mother packs up a baby already traumatised from domestic violence, and takes her away from her family?
The coffee and cake arrived. She sipped slowly and picked at her cake. She needed to sit here for a while longer, among normal people going about their everyday lives. She imagined what she would say to someone else in her situation. An alcoholic, unemployed and unstable father, and an ill, erratic mother who disappeared with a traumatised baby. Nadia shook her head. She knew what she had to do. She had to detach herself from the fact that Zoe was her family. She had no choice: this was no longer about them; it was all about Louise.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zoe sat on a plastic chair on the balcony with a glass of red wine. She’d had a bottle delivered from the island store along with the other groceries that she’d need for a few days. Sparrows darted and danced in the dusk air, catching insects. Rottnest was quiet, now, in midwinter. During the day, a few tourists puffed up the hills as they cycled against the blustery winds, but by late afternoon most had boarded the ferry back to the mainland. Every so often Zoe heard the distant squeals of children hurtling down a path on their bikes, and the clatter of bottles being emptied into a recycling bin.
Zoe had spent the last twenty-four hours locked in the villa with Louise, only venturing out onto the balcony for some fresh air. She didn’t really think Nadia could find her, but she worried that she’d attract attention as an out-of-season visitor if she went into the village, especially struggling alone with Louise. Right now she needed time to think. She had called work yesterday from the ferry and told them there was a family emergency, so at least they wouldn’t be looking for her. She reminded herself again that she hadn’t done anything wrong. Louise was her daughter; Zoe had the paperwork to prove it, a birth certificate with her name on it, but for some reason she still expected the police to track her down and take Louise away.
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